SCIPRESS FORMA
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Forma, Vol. 19 (No. 3), pp.233-264, 2004
Original Paper

Generation of Mandala Patterns from Texts that Include Sutras, Poems and Strings of Words: Method and Examples

Kazuya Hayata

Department of Socio-Informatics, Sapporo Gakuin University, Ebetsu 069-8555, Japan
E-mail address: hayata@earth.sgu.ac.jp

(Received January 14, 2004; Accepted January 31, 2005)

Keywords: Mandala, Jungian Phychology, Buddhist Scriptures, Spiral Mapping, Diversity Indices

Abstract. Two-dimensional patterns with four-fold mirror symmetry are generated from texts written with Chinese characters. The drawing is based on the spiral mapping technique, with which one can visualize a statistical property of a text within a two-dimensional region through spirally folding a string of the characters. After illustrating the outline of the method, typical results of the pattern generation are shown and subsequently analyzed by means of the diversity indices. Specifically, these patterns can be obtained from a variety of texts such as sutras, poems, and strings of words, for instance, titles of chapters in a literary work.


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